


By Invitation Only (The Contradictions Remix)

by cosmic_llin



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Medical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:40:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/pseuds/cosmic_llin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giving aid on a planet stricken with a plague, Kate Pulaski ponders her nature.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Invitation Only (The Contradictions Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pensnest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensnest/gifts).
  * Inspired by [By Invitation Only](https://archiveofourown.org/works/63795) by [pensnest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensnest/pseuds/pensnest). 



####  _ Chief Medical Officer’s Log, Stardate  42639.4 : Having found a possible cure for the Bradari illness, I’m taking a medical team down to run our first test on a patient. We’re beaming down to the Valmarene Infirmary shortly. _

  
Kate Pulaski had always been contrary - and more than that, contradictory. There was no other explanation, she told herself frequently and irritably, why she would have chosen a job that required so much beaming around the place, when the transporter was the thing she hated most in the universe. She often wondered what life was like for people who didn’t deliberately make it more difficult for themselves.  
  
Captain Picard had authorised her to take a shuttlecraft down to the planet, but she couldn't contemplate prolonging others’ suffering because of her own phobia. So she took a deep breath and entered the transporter room, where her medical team were waiting. She took her place on the transporter pad, and tried to ignore Chief O’Brien’s teasing and the shiver that started in her gut and ran up her spine.  
  
She closed her eyes - she hated to be aware of the moment she began to dematerialize. There was a hideous moment when she was sure that she was dead - just like she did every time - and then, she was solid again and she heard the familiar sound of a busy medical facility the instant before she opened her eyes.

Just like that, the transporter was forgotten. This was what she was here for. This was where she was needed.  


‘All right, let’s get to work,’ she said. ‘Alyssa, M’Chaa, Abhay - triage. Mikhail, T’Lima - organise a space for us to instruct the local medics on how to administer the cure, if the test is successful. Deanna, Faisal, you’re with me.’

Speaker Deljardo, the planet’s representative, was there to meet them.  
  
‘We’re so glad you’re here,’ she said. ‘As you asked, we’ve prepared a volunteer to be the first to have the cure administered. This way.’  
  
Commander Riker was there already, and nodded to them as they arrived. The patient was lying in bed, and his sheets were rumpled and creased as though he’d been tossing and turning. Kate felt the strange mixture of concern and excitement she always did at the prospect of testing a new medicine. She hoped for his sake that it would work - the challenge of curing an unknown illness was compelling, but if she failed it wouldn't mean just her disappointment. The man in the bed had family and friends who were worried about him.  
  
She sat down beside the bed, while the nurse, Ensign Bitar, started to set up the apparatus to administer the treatment.  
  
‘What’s your name?’ she asked the man.  
  
He just gazed blankly at her, his breath heavy and laboured.  
  
‘He doesn’t know you’re there,’ said Deanna.   
  
She took a seat on the other side, and reached for the man’s hand. Kate watched his face calm as Deanna spoke quietly to him. She waited.  
  
‘He’s ready for you to begin now,’ Deanna said after a few moments.  
  
Kate nodded to Ensign Bital, who began to administer the treatment. She took out her tricorder and monitored his progress, looking from her readouts to Ensign Bital, to Deanna, and to the man lying in the bed. His temperature was lowering slightly already, and his face was smoothing out as he relaxed with Deanna’s help. She smiled to herself, proud and relieved at once.  
  
* * *  
  
Kate spent the next several hours in a few rooms in the same wing of the hospital, dashing between triage, treatment and recovery, giving demonstrations to the Bradari medical staff, catching up with her team for progress reports and encouraging words, supervising the delivery of more medicine and checking on the patients she had already treated. The first group of people to be treated were already much better. The first man she had treated was sitting up in bed, eating. He smiled at her, and she waved as she went by.  
  
It was late in the Bradari evening, and she’d lost track altogether of what time it was on the Enterprise. She’d helped to get the patients to bed and the wards sorted out for the night, and now she was in the staff cafeteria, eating a meagre supper while she went over the charts that recorded the day's work, the medical reports from other physicians, and her own research, conducted barely a day ago.  
  
‘Couldn’t sleep?’ someone said.  
  
Kate looked up. ‘Oh, hello Deanna,’ she said. ‘I thought you went back up to the ship with the first shift medical team.’  
  
Deanna shrugged. ‘I can be useful here, there are still many people who I can help. I just came out of the ward for a moment to replenish my energy. What are you working on?’  
  
‘Working on? Oh,’ Kate looked down at the PADD in her hand. ‘It’s this illness. There are a few odd things about it that I wanted to look into, and I haven’t had the time to do all the research I’d like. I thought I’d do a little investigation, while we’re waiting for the next batch of saline thorcosamine to arrive.’  
  
Deanna slid into the seat beside her, and leaned her elbows on the table. ‘And you don’t think this time would be better spent, say, sleeping? Or eating a proper meal?’  
  
Kate looked at the lukewarm beverage and half-eaten sandwich that she had abandoned. ‘There’ll be time for all that once this is dealt with,’ she said. ‘I’ve spent the day helping patients, and I wanted to spend a little of the evening on the more academic side of things.’  
  
‘I’ve noticed that about you,’ said Deanna. ‘I’ve seen you working in Sickbay, and it’s clear that you’re passionate about healing, but having seen your record I’m surprised you’re not still in research. Your work on viral propagation was groundbreaking.’  
  
Kate inclined her head in acknowledgement.   
  
‘I’ve always been contradictory,’ she said. ‘I can’t even agree with myself, much less anyone else. Whatever I'm doing, I always find myself wondering if the opposite mightn’t be better. When I was working in a lab, I missed seeing real people and helping them. When I'm working with patients, I miss the intellectual challenge of research.’  
  
‘Sounds like a difficult way to live,’ said Deanna.  
  
‘Oh, it can be,’ said Kate. ‘There have been plenty of times that I’ve wished I could want just one thing, pull in just one direction. But it’s also liberating - to know that you can change your mind any time, that there will always be more choices and more new things to do and places to go.'  
  
‘That does sound exciting,’ agreed Deanna.  
  
‘Oh, it is,’ said Kate. ‘And then there are times like this - times when I get to do both, to solve a problem and to be right there in the middle of everything at the same time. To see the effect my work has on people's lives. Those are the times that make it worthwhile. And being on the Enterprise means that I get a lot of those moments.'  
  
‘I'm glad,' said Deanna, and she smiled. 'But there are some decisions that do have just one right choice. And the question of whether a doctor who's been working hard all day and intends to again tomorrow needs to get some sleep... well, that's one of the obvious ones.'  
  
Kate grinned. ‘You may be right,’ she said. ‘But Counselor, I notice that you’re still up too. You’re not setting a very good example, are you?’  
  
Deanna laughed. ‘I never said I wasn’t contradictory too,’ she said. ‘But I’ll go and get some sleep if you will.’  
  
‘It’s a deal,’ said Kate.  
  
After all, there would still be plenty of choices to make tomorrow.


End file.
